The Algerian war is also invited to the Angoulême International Comics Festival

French paratroopers on patrol in the Aurès massif, stopped a caravan and questioned Algerian peasants, on November 12, 1954, ten days after the series of attacks which marked the beginning of the Algerian war of independence.

© AFP/Pierre Bonnin

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

This Saturday, France commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Evian Accords and the ceasefire in Algeria and also in Angoulême, where the 49th International Comics Festival is being held.

The Algerian war can be found in several albums, including one in a comic mode with “Un général, des générals” published by Lombard, and another more realistic with “Called from Algeria” published by Marabulles.

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With our special correspondent in Angoulême

,

Sophie Torlotin

In June 1958,

General de Gaulle

was recalled to power and went to Algiers and pronounced his famous " 

I understood you

 ".

The French in Algeria are reassured.

Like the generals who maneuvered to bring de Gaulle back to power, they believe that the colony will remain in the French fold.

François Boucq and Nicolas Juncker tell this misunderstanding and this tragicomic story in the form of a farce in the album

Un général, des generals 

: It is not strictly speaking a farce because the story is still very tragic, specifies Nicolas Juncker, the screenwriter

.

We have the Algerian war, we have a change of republic, we have a risk of civil war.

Paradoxically, we realize that people are overwhelmed, whether it's the military or the politicians in Paris.

There is no strategy and at no time do they arise.

That's why there is this vaudeville side, because everything goes very fast, there are doors slamming, it's a play. 

»

The war seen from the side of young soldiers

The Algerian war finds itself treated in a more realistic mode, closer to the field, at the level of young soldiers doing their military service in

Called from Algeria 

: " 

The worst thing is not so much to have tortured, because ultimately it was the officers who tortured, but it was to have witnessed it because they are not torturers, they are not psychopaths,

says the designer Deloupy.

And when they came back, they had to live with what they had let happen.

 »

And the designer Deloupy is thinking of a new volume that would tell the Algerian war, but this time seen from the Algerian side.

To listen: Angoulême, the Manga City

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